Um, if you change insurance, since the beginning of time, for any reason, you run the risk that your doctor is not in the new plan. Obamacare has nothing to do with that.

If you keep your insurance, your odds are better, but they could most certainly change their contracts with the doctors and you might be faced with having to find another doctor. Or, they retire, die, move, or get arrested. Obamacare has nothing to do with this, either.

Obama was clearly referring to the fact that nothing in the law with force you to change your current insurance or doctor.

/this is getting old, and I know it's only starting - the deliberate misinformation

My doctor died. While some people are of the opinion that doctors are like barbers and you choose the one with the worst haircut I can't abide a doctor who is in a state of decay. I'm not keeping my doctor.

fickenchucker:OhioUGrad: is upset that he will have to pay a tax on his pacemaker that saved his life.

Why do you think he would be happy about this new tax? My wife has an implanted morphine pump for chronic back pain, and we're still not sure what the cost repercussions will be next year, let alone when it need to be replaced. All we know right now is her pain management doctor is retiring early and getting out of the biz. The doctor projected she would be forced into a hefty pay cut and threw in the towel.

Nearly all the doctors are projecting that. But why listen to the people being affected directly? We can listen to people who's total sum of knowledge is their favorite news talking head or the government itself. Because We All Know The Government Never Lies.

Obamacare knocked over my trash cans and made a mess while I slept last night. It took me 120 minutes clean it all up this morning because Obamacare lead a bunch of strays cats over to it so they could tear apart all the bags looking for the scraps

Full Metal Retard:supayoda: Voiceofreason01: and buried WAY at the bottom of the article it notes that "Obamacare" does not in any way effect who your doctor is as that's decided by you and your insurance company.

And we're done here. It's basically the same situation it's always been. "Obamacare" is merely a new way to buy the same motherfarkin' crap for-profit insurance we've been boned with for decades. If your insurance company changes (just like it very well could have before Obamacare) then you're going to go with the in-network doctors for the new insurance (just like before Obamacare).

...

How terrible that someone treated you like an adult, and allowed you to make your own decisions. But I'm sure ObamaCare inserting another middle man will bring down costs. And mandating coverage for minor benefits will certainly reduce costs - like turning $10 a month birth control pills into a $200 monthly expense, because it will now require a full bout of claims processing overhead. I mean... Look at what a Fantastic Job they did with Social Security!!!!!11!! Young people are really set to benefit from that.

Well, you ARE a retard. And a liar. And ignorant of history. And determined not to be accurate. But other than that, you've got a good thing going.

If this obamacare folly is so great how come barry, his family, Congress, their families, the Senate and their families are exempt? That's what it says on page 114. Seems like true leaders would want to show Americans how "great" this is.

robohobo:Thrag: fickenchucker: She said the new rules basically encourage smaller businesses to drop their employee healthcare coverage and pay the fines.

How does that work exactly?

So, an employer who offers health benefits, who before the ACA could just drop the benefits at any time with zero cost to themselves, will now have an incentive to drop health benefits because now instead of it costing them nothing, it will cost them something?

Forgive me if I don't get understand the logic where creating a penalty where there was not one before somehow encourages people to subject themselves to the penalty.

If the penalty is less than the cost of providing healthcare, you're getting farked, but not as badly. The gov's gonna get their paper no matter what.

Huh? I don't think you understand the question. Let's try an example. Say a company now spends $10,000 on their health benefits. So their choice currently is to pay $10,000 and provide health benefits or to not provide health benefits which will cost them $0. Under the new plan let's say the penalty for not providing health benefits is $1000. So the choice becomes either pay $10,000 for the benefits or pay a $1000 penalty.

How is having to pay $1000 for dropping benefits a greater incentive to do so than having to pay $0? Why would a company that can drop benefits at zero cost to itself but chooses not to, suddenly decide to drop benefits when it will cost them money to do so?

Lando Lincoln:bluefox3681: Well Obamacare is awesome, right? That's why many provisions are being pushed off for another year pass mid-term elections.

Yes, it's definitely better than what we had in the past. Are you arguing that we should go back to the way it was?

Yes, perhaps. The CBO's own projection is that 31 million people in this country will not have health insurance in this country and that this number will never be lower. Plus this is raising rates. Employers are cutting hours and increasing part time positions rather than full time employees.

SecretAgentWoman:Obama was clearly referring to the fact that nothing in the law with force you to change your current insurance or doctor.

Of course not. It would have been ridiculous for them to have an 'all you guys cant go to your doctors' clause. What 98% of people took that statement to mean, was that "If you dont want any of our new plans, you can keep your old one"

Obama never said that what he was going to do was jack up your costs either. So you can keep your doctor.. but you just have to pay more, especially if your doctor works with medicare and is currently getting boned my Obama.

My doctor has a lot of medicare patients and had to increase our cost by $1000.

dbrunker:We're going to delay the implementation of the Affordable Care Act until after the 2014 elections because... reasons.

Some parts of the ACA. Because polticians want to keep their job, and SuperPACs are waiting to kill their chances of re-election, because the uninformed populace stupidly believes what they hear from SuperPACs.

Imagine what our government would be like if our politicians were single-term and thus didn't have to worry about re-election.

RyanAntiHero:Nearly all the doctors are projecting that. But why listen to the people being affected directly? We can listen to people who's total sum of knowledge is their favorite news talking head or the government itself. Because We All Know The Government Never Lies.

Because, practicing medicine isn't about helping patients, saving lives, easing pain and improving (others') quality of life, it's about DOLLA DOLLA BILLS Y'ALL. I don't know about you, but I'd rather not have a doctor who's only, or even primary, interest is in the financial bottom line.

There are no republicans, there are no democrats, there is no great battle of opposing ideologies. No catharsis, no higher quality nostrum nor normalcy shall emerge from either of the two ostensibly opposing camps that do not amount to anything more than different logos in any meaningful sense of the notion of governance. It's a con. It's malarkey. It's a quadrennial fandango of sock puppet theater and the same fat bastard is working both puppets.

And they throw the most money and social engineering behind the puppet that they think will most likely allow for whatever they had already planned to do to get pushed through the grease like crap through a goose. And then they spend the other three years shaping their next strategy, and vetting the new duo of puppets, and making sure that we keep barking sh*t at each other about which puppet's logo we have decided to sew on our coats.

And it's never gonna change until they either finish gutting the joint and head to the airport or we burn pretty much, yeah, every last bit of whatever moves their IOUs around to the ground.

And all of these threads and all of the cute pictures with funny captions and all of the political barbs and shilling and harrumphing doesn't add up to sh*t. Sorry.

I haven't been able to see a doctor in years. My last several employers didn't offer health care. One of my current gigs does, but it's Starbridge and it's awful and not worth it considering how little they actually cover (I'm better off paying out of pocket if I ever have an emergency, because they cover less per year than I'd spend on insurance in a couple years.)

So forgive me if I don't cry for all you folks who might have to switch doctors. It might be nice to have a choice like that. Boo hoo. You might have to have someone else make you better if you're ill. That sounds rough.

I don't get the attachment to specific doctors. Now I understand if the one you're going to is fixing your problems that you like them. Nothing says the doctor across the street won't be able to do the same. I pick based on convenience, if one moves his office or I move, I pick another. That's why they have records is so that is pretty seamless.

teenytinycornteeth:Watch a real doctor shut up the Koch brothers in under two minutes. I think it would be so neat if all the people screaming and yelling about how everyone is going to marked with the number of the beast and eaten by doctors because of Obamacare would actually READ a little bit about the Affordable Care Act before believing what their conservative "think tank" overlords tell them is the truth.

Kinda reminds me of an argument I had with my parents about it. They claimed every doctor would quit because of how little Medicare pays, ect... Then my wife, who works in a doctor's office told them private insurance often pays less and is far more of a pain in the ass.They responded with "Well, I mean, that must be an isolated example".

I've come to realize that it's best to just let them fume and get it out of their system. Then put them down for a nap.

Voiceofreason01:and buried WAY at the bottom of the article it notes that "Obamacare" does not in any way effect who your doctor is as that's decided by you and your insurance company.

beakgeek:This is no different than switching health care plans at work. Some doctors might not be in your list of providers. Not some evil socialist plot.

free_xenu:Every time my company changes insurance providers, I am forced to pick a new in-plan doctor.

Exactly. If we had single payer, than maybe the government might tell you. The healthcare insurance system is so f'ed up. Why is it tied to employment? Shortened reason: because of wage controls in WWII. For crying out loud. Can't we graduate beyond the 1940s? Why not let us all have access to the deal the congress does? OH YEAH BECAUSE THEY HAVE SUCH A CUSH DEAL IT WOULD BREAK THE BANK!

robohobo:Nhojwolfe: Dr's worth any weight are going to break up into pods and you are going to have to pay 3-6 k a year just for the right to say this is my Dr.

Obama care is going to mess up medical care big time

This has been happening for awhile now. My wife is a specialist, couple years ago she and 7 or 8 other joined together to run their own clinic. First thing they did was opt out of accepting Medicare. They're looking at not accepting insurance, period. It's happening all over.

So your wife hates money? Have her call the local hospital on the collection rates of cash only patients. Hint: It's not good, unless she thinks selling the debt for $.03 on the dollar to a collections agency is a good return rate for services.

Watch a real doctor shut up the Koch brothers in under two minutes. I think it would be so neat if all the people screaming and yelling about how everyone is going to marked with the number of the beast and eaten by doctors because of Obamacare would actually READ a little bit about the Affordable Care Act before believing what their conservative "think tank" overlords tell them is the truth.

Voiceofreason01:and buried WAY at the bottom of the article it notes that "Obamacare" does not in any way effect who your doctor is as that's decided by you and your insurance company.

Yeah, I don't remember what the source of the claim was that you'd have to switch doctors, but after it ended up being mandatory insurance, I thought it was a pretty incredible claim, since many of us with employer-provided insurance have had to switch GPs several times over the past decade or so because the insurance company says, "oh, hey, the GP you went to for your last visit isn't in your group any more," find a new doctor in the group, then 6 months lather, rinse, and repeat.

Some of the anti-fraud provisions in it were responsible for finding out he'd scammed Medicare for over $750,000 by billing them for patients that didn't exist or procedures he didn't perform.

My idiot-brother-in-law and his other OT friends hate Obamacare and their discussions about how much money it's going to lose them basically come down to this. The down side of reforming the health care system in order to lower costs is that people who have been unfairly gaming the system for profit won't be able to any more.